


leave unsaid unspoken

by murderouscrows



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderouscrows/pseuds/murderouscrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>never once during their waltzing, forbidden romance did either of them say "i love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave unsaid unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> also on tumblr - http://murderous-crows.tumblr.com/post/62867056525/leave-unsaid-unspoken

Their relationship had been anything but chaste.

Budding when they were young, stupid, not unable to see the future but living to fast in the moment to care. The purpose of and Empress’s Lord Protector was strictly professional. Relationships thereof was unheard of and a call for the political and social execution of the both of them. The fact that he was Serkonan surely didn’t help matters whatsoever. She knew that as well as he did and yet they carried on without a care in the world. He couldn’t say that he regretted it. The years he had spent together with the Empress had been the best of his life.

Yet never once during their waltzing, forbidden romance did either of them say "I love you."

Maybe that simple fact made it okay. The lack of vocal affirmation made it easier for the both of them to return to their daily duties as if nothing transpired behind the curtains or when they thought no one was looking. It made it easier for the Empress rule and easier for her Lord Protector to assure her day-to-day safety. Those three words were never spoken, so maybe those feelings didn’t exist if only for a short while. They danced a waltz with four beats, unsteady tempo, and careless footing.

Corvo couldn’t have asked for anything more.

 

* * *

 

When Emily was born, Jess wouldn’t tell him who the father was. Whether that meant he was the father or that he wasn’t, it did very little in changing the dynamic of their relationship. Needless to say, Corvo took to fathering Emily as if she was his own. Now there was a little bundle of joy and heir to the throne in their keeping. Their waltz slowed, thrown back into the proper three-step count by a sudden check in reality. They steadied the tempo and paid more attention to the placement of their feet.

Now more than ever, their duties distracted the majority of their attention. The plague was spreading fast and it was taking a toll on both of them. For as good as he was with plans and protecting, Corvo’s knowledge of political procedures paled in comparison to Jessamine’s as it should. He could offer little support upon the countless hours she spent arguing with the Spymaster and other officials who felt as if they knew how to run the empire better than the Empress herself. However, she handled everything with perfection.

Their own personal vendettas could wait.

The waltz, though existent, was barely audible and its tempo was indiscernible. Their feet no longer moved with liveliness or haste – they hardly moved at all. When Jessamine sent him away to complete a task only he could, the music would stop. Though Corvo promised himself, just ask he silently bid to Jess, that they would once again dance together. He left without uttering those three words.

Three words that would never again see an opportunity to fall off his lips.

 

* * *

 

Just like that, she was gone and replaced with a cruel representation of the very thing that had died along with her. Corvo knew that the Outsider had used the heart of his beloved. Whether or not it was a sick joke or simply the whale god’s idea of twisted irony, Corvo would never be sure. He’d never ask him. Frankly, he didn’t care to find out. What he did know what that he liked to listen to it, if only to hear that hauntingly familiar voice speak aimlessly of incomprehensible things. It made his heart ache just as much as it made it flutter.

It would be Jessamine’s voice that would lead him to hell and back. Her voice that would lead him to Emily, warn him of the betrayal he was too blind to see, and comfort him on the long journey home. Frequently, Corvo would wonder if the Heart contained anything of his dear Jess besides her voice. Could she him? Feel his presence just as strongly as he felt hers? Was Jessamine really somewhere deep within the cold steel and lifeless cogs? Could she hear the three words he muttered to her every night before falling fitfully into an abyss of nightmares?

 

* * *

 

In the months following Emily’s coronation and Corvo’s reinstatement as Lord Protector, the Heart’s voice started to weaken. He did his best not to let a sense of betrayal creep into his bones, or of sadness onto his features. Slowly but surely, he could feel Jessamine drifting away from him again and, just like before, there was nothing he could do to keep their dance from ending. However, over time his outlook slowly shifted. The sorrow was slowly replaced with gratitude. Her fading from the Heart, fading away from him, meant that Jessamine may finally find peace somewhere beyond the Void. She would finally depart to wait for him in the ballroom so that they may once again dance with one another.

 

* * *

 

It was a calm quiet night when Corvo felt that the sleep wouldn’t come. He was no longer kept awake by wariness of betrayal or fear of losing Emily to those he couldn’t protect her from. Age had started to pull at his features and with each passing day he watched as his little Empress slowly grew to fit the throne her mother had left behind for her. Corvo had long found peace with the demons he couldn’t hide away, and yet the sleep was slow in finding him. He stared aimlessly at the ceiling, willing his body to relax into the mattress he had called his own for the better part of twenty-some years.

It would be until sleep had entered and the darkness tugged at the corners of his eyes that he would hear it. A ghost of a whisper, barely audible and hauntingly familiar. In the morning he would wake up with no recollection, just a nagging feeling in his stomach and the searing sensation of fingers brushed lightly over his cheek.

“I love you, Corvo”


End file.
